Eternal Families and Same-Sex Marriage (Part 1)
This article includes excerpts from The Heart of Our Covenants: Temple Principles that Draw Us unto Christ by Valiant K. Jones. Used by permission. See www.valiantjones.com or www.cedarfort.com.
While addressing the conflict between same-sex marriage concerns and Church doctrine in August of 2021, President Jeffrey R. Holland admonished the BYU community to do better in teaching our doctrine, encouraging them to find “better ways to move toward crucially important goals in these very difficult matters—ways that show empathy and understanding for everyone while maintaining loyalty to prophetic leadership and devotion to revealed doctrine.” He then spoke of a “need to define, document, and defend the faith.”[i]
This series of articles is intended as a faithful response to that request. The first three articles in this series focus primarily on “loyalty to prophetic leadership and devotion to revealed doctrine,” and the final two articles focus primarily on “ways that show empathy and understanding for everyone.”
A Doctrine Once Admired, Now Criticized
For many decades, our Church’s doctrine on eternal marriage and the family had been a point of righteous pride within the Church and a reason for admiration from without. In the 1980s, Krister Stendahl, the Lutheran Bishop of Stockholm, declared that he felt “holy envy” for our Church’s doctrine related to temple work for our deceased ancestors.[ii] Others have shown similar respect for Latter-day Saint teachings and lifestyle in past years.
More recently, however, the Church’s doctrine on eternal families has been criticized from both within and without. This criticism has coincided with a deterioration of the institution of the family and a growth in political and social support for alternative lifestyles. Some people have been especially critical of the Church’s policies regarding same-sex marriage. They call Church leaders old-fashioned and advocate for change, saying that the Church should allow same-sex temple marriage.
Can the doctrine of the Church accommodate such a change? Could the Church open the door to same-sex eternal marriage without altering many of the foundational doctrines that make our Church unique from all other Christian denominations? This series of articles will examine pertinent scriptures and statements from prophets and apostles that underscore the doctrine of the Church regarding eternal families and eternal seed. It will also discuss whether our doctrine can accommodate the calls for change surrounding this complex issue.
Be Fruitful and Multiply
The first commandment God gave Adam and Eve, recorded in the first chapter of Genesis, was to “be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Genesis 1:28). In the second chapter, we learn that Adam and Eve “shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:24–25). After their Fall and expulsion from the garden, we read that “Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare [a son]” (Genesis 4:1). The opening chapters of God’s holy word clearly emphasize the propriety of sexual union between a husband and a wife.
As Latter-day Saints, we believe that sexual intimacy in marriage is good. God has not placed barriers around sex because it is a bad thing but rather because it is such a supremely good thing. The General Handbook of the Church states, “Physical intimacy between husband and wife is intended to be beautiful and sacred. It is ordained of God for the creation of children and for the expression of love between husband and wife.”[iii]
An article in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism on procreation states: “Latter-day Saints have an exceptionally positive view of procreation. After God commanded Adam and Eve to ‘multiply and replenish the earth’ (Gen. 1:28), he pronounced all of his creation, including the power of procreation, ‘very good’ (Gen. 1:31). President Joseph F. Smith noted, ‘The lawful association of the sexes is ordained of God, not only as the sole means of race perpetuation, but for the development of the higher faculties and nobler traits of human nature, which the love-inspired companionship of man and woman alone can insure’ (Improvement Era 20:739). . . . Using the power of procreation does not alienate one from God. Rather, properly used, it enables mortals to become cocreators with him in the divine Plan of Salvation.”[iv]
Marriage between a man and a woman, including procreation, is tied to the purpose of the earth. The Lord revealed, “And again, verily I say unto you, that whoso forbiddeth to marry is not ordained of God, for marriage is ordained of God unto man. Wherefore, it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation; And that it might be filled with the measure of man, according to his creation before the world was made” (D&C 49:15–17; emphasis added).
Literal Children of Heavenly Parents
During a cholera epidemic in Nauvoo in 1839, eighteen-year-old Zina Diantha Huntington and her mother contracted the disease, and the mother passed away. Zina recovered after being cared for in the home of Joseph and Emma Smith.[v] In her later years, Zina recounted a dialogue that occurred one day while talking with the Prophet about her grief over the loss of her mother. Zina asked the Prophet, “Will I know my mother as my mother when I get over on the Other Side?” “Certainly you will,” he quickly replied. “More than that, you will meet and become acquainted with your eternal Mother, the wife of your Father in Heaven.” Zina then exclaimed in astonishment, “And have I then a Mother in Heaven?” To which Joseph affirmed, “You assuredly have. How could a Father claim His title unless there were also a Mother to share that parenthood?”[vi]
President Dallin H. Oaks taught, “Our theology begins with heavenly parents. Our highest aspiration is to be like them. . . . As earthly parents we participate in the gospel plan by providing mortal bodies for the spirit children of God. The fulness of eternal salvation is a family matter.”[vii] The Church’s Gospel Topics essay on Mother in Heaven states, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that all human beings, male and female, are beloved spirit children of heavenly parents, a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother.”[viii]
The Encyclopedia of Mormonism adds this: “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rejects the idea found in some religions that the spirits or souls of individual human beings are created ex nihilo. . . . Latter-day Saints believe that all the people of earth who lived or will live are actual spiritual offspring of God the Eternal Father (Num. 16:22; Heb. 12:9). In this perspective, parenthood requires both father and mother, whether for the creation of spirits in the premortal life or of physical tabernacles on earth.”[ix]
In the Doctrine and Covenants, we read that “the inhabitants [of the world] are begotten sons and daughters unto God” (D&C 76:24). To beget means to produce offspring. The belief that our spirits are literal offspring of our heavenly parents is a fundamental building block of our doctrine that has been affirmed by a myriad of Church leaders in statements such as the following:
- President John Taylor: “[Man] is a son of God, and being his son, he is, of course, his offspring, an emanation from God, in whose likeness, we are told, he is He did not originate from a chaotic mass of matter, moving or inert, but came forth possessing, in an embryonic state, all the faculties and powers of a God.”[x]
- The First Presidency (1909): “The Father of Jesus is our Father Jesus . . . is our elder brother, and we, like him, are in the image of God. All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother and are literally the sons and daughters of Deity.”[xi]
- Sister Bonnie Cordon: “You are literally the spirit daughters of heavenly parents, and nothing can separate you from Their love and the love of your Savior.”[xii]
- President Dieter Uchtdorf: “We are the literal spirit children of divine, immortal, and omnipotent heavenly parents!”[xiii]
- Sister Julie Beck: “You have light because you are literally spirit daughters of Deity, ‘offspring of exalted parents’ with a divine nature and an eternal destiny. You received your first lessons in the world of spirits from your heavenly parents.”[xiv]
What does it mean to say that we are the literal offspring of heavenly parents? If you google the word literal, you will get this definition: “taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory.”[xv] So our status as children of God is not metaphorical—it is literal. This is our doctrine.
To say that we are literal and not metaphorical offspring of both our Heavenly Father and our Heavenly Mother implies that our spirit bodies formed as a result of some sort of union between them. Elder Franklin D. Richards quoted Moses 6:8–9: “In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; in the image of his own body, male and female, created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam.” He then explained, “Here we are informed that it required the male and female, united to make one image of [God’s] own body.”[xvi]
This concept may make some people uncomfortable, but it should not. As discussed earlier, we believe that sexual intimacy in marriage is good, not bad. Consider this statement by President Brigham Young: “God has made His children like Himself . . . and has endowed them with intelligence and power and dominion over all His works, and given them the same attributes which He himself possesses. He created man, as we create our children; for there is no other process of creation in heaven, on the earth, in the earth, or under the earth, or in all the eternities, that is, that were, or that ever will be.”[xvii]
The Prophet Joseph Smith taught, “When the Savior shall appear we shall see him as he is. We shall see that he is a man like ourselves” (D&C 130:1). Gospel writers Scot and Maurine Proctor have added, “In other words, we are not of a different species than God. We are not His creatures, nor His subjects, nor His possessions, but His children at a different stage of progression.”[xviii] As such, it makes sense to suggest that the process of creating spiritual offspring in the eternal worlds would be similar to the process we experience in the mortal world.
This idea may be a challenge to grasp. As President Brigham Young said, “The whole subject of the [eternal] marriage relation is . . . a hard matter to reach. We can tell some things with regard to it; it lays the foundation for worlds, for angels, and for the Gods; for intelligent beings to be crowned with glory, immortality, and eternal lives. In fact, it is the thread which runs from the beginning to the end of the holy Gospel of Salvation—of the Gospel of the Son of God; it is from eternity to eternity.”[xix]
There Are Also Celestial Bodies
As Latter-day Saints, we believe in a physical resurrection of our bodies. I have attended several funerals in other Christian denominations, and in every case, the priest or pastor spoke of resurrection and eternal life as if they were only spiritual experiences. There was talk of the soul or spirit living on but not of the physical body coming to life again. In contrast, the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that our physical bodies will rise again in a literal, corporeal resurrection.
Speaking of the Resurrection of all mankind, the great Book of Mormon missionary and theologian Amulek taught: “The spirit and the body shall be reunited again in its perfect form; both limb and joint shall be restored to its proper frame, even as we now are at this time. . . . Now, this restoration shall come to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, both the wicked and the righteous; and even there shall not so much as a hair of their heads be lost” (Alma 11:43–44).
The Apostle Paul also taught that we will all be resurrected, but he added that there will be differences in the nature of our resurrected bodies depending on the kingdom we have been resurrected to abide in: “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: . . . All flesh is not the same flesh. . . . There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:21–23, 39–42; emphasis added).
Paul’s message lays a foundation for the following instruction by President Joseph Fielding Smith, which teaches that the ability to procreate eternally will be restricted only to those who inherit the celestial kingdom: “Some will gain celestial bodies with all the powers of exaltation and eternal increase. Those who receive the exaltation in the celestial kingdom will have the ‘continuation of the seeds forever’ (D&C 132:19). They will live in the family relationship. In the terrestrial and in the telestial kingdoms there will be no marriage. Those who enter there will remain ‘separately and singly’ forever (D&C 132:15–32). Some of the functions in the celestial body will not appear in the terrestrial body, neither in the telestial body,[xx] and the power of procreation will be removed.”[xxi]
These teachings are consistent with the following two revealed statements received by the Prophet Joseph Smith and recorded in our scriptural canon. First, “In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; And if he does not, he cannot obtain it. He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase” (D&C 131:1–4; emphasis added). Second, “And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, . . . and if [they] abide in my covenant, . . . they shall pass by the angels, and the gods . . . to their exaltation and glory in all things, . . . which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever. Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; . . . because they have all power, . . . and continuation of the lives” (D&C 132:19–22; emphasis added).
Clearly, God has designed eternal marriage so that His covenant children can enjoy the blessings of eternal increase themselves. President James E. Faust described the sacred temple marriage ceremony in these words: “We can see in vision the countless couples in their youth and beauty coming to be married. We see clearly the unspeakable joy on their countenances as they are sealed together and as there is sealed upon them, through their faithfulness, the blessing of the holy Resurrection, with power to come forth in the morning of the First Resurrection clothed with glory, immortality, and eternal lives.”[xxii]
President Faust makes it clear that those being married in the temple are given “the blessing of the holy Resurrection, with power to come forth in the morning of the First Resurrection.” I used to wonder why this would be pronounced as a blessing of temple marriage since we know that everyone will be resurrected and that all the righteous will come forth on the morning of the First Resurrection, whether they receive a temple marriage or not. Then I realized that this promise comes with a critical modifying phrase: “clothed with glory, immortality, and eternal lives.” This is the crowning blessing of eternal marriage: Couples sealed together will come forth on the morning of the First Resurrection clothed in glorious, immortal bodies that will have the capability of bringing forth additional eternal lives.
This glorious promise is given only to those who are married in the temple for eternity and is contingent upon staying true to holy covenants. As President Joseph Fielding Smith taught, “Those who are married in the temple for all time and eternity obtain the blessing of eternal lives. I put stress on eternal lives. Eternal life is God’s life, that is, to be like Him. Eternal lives means eternal increase—the continuation, as the revelation says, of the seeds forever.”[xxiii]
We should not think of this doctrine of eternal seed as obscure. It is one of the most fundamental truths of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is the culminating objective of our temple ordinances. The following quotes reiterate this truth:
- Joseph Smith: “Except a man and his wife enter into an everlasting covenant and be married for eternity, while in this probation, by the power and authority of the Holy Priesthood, they will cease to increase when they die; that is, they will not have any children after the resurrection. But those who are married by the power and authority of the priesthood in this life, and continue without committing the sin against the Holy Ghost, will continue to increase and have children in the celestial glory.”[xxiv]
- Joseph Fielding Smith: “The Father has promised us that through our faithfulness . . . we will have the privilege of becoming like Him. To become like him we must have all the powers of godhood; thus a man and his wife when glorified will have spirit children who eventually will go on an earth like this one we are on and pass through the same kind of experiences, being subject to mortal conditions, and if faithful, then they also will receive the fulness of exaltation and partake of the same blessings. There is no end to this development; it will go on forever. We will become gods and have jurisdiction over worlds, and these worlds will be peopled by our own offspring. We will have an endless eternity for this.”[xxv]
- Melvin Ballard: “What do we mean by endless or eternal increase? We mean that through the righteousness and faithfulness of men and women who keep the commandments of God they will come forth with celestial bodies, fitted and prepared to enter into their great, high and eternal glory in the celestial kingdom of God; and unto them, through their preparation, there will come children, who will be spirit children. I don’t think that is very difficult to comprehend and understand.”[xxvi]
Why is this doctrine of eternal increase so important? Because it points to the fact that eternal seed can only be propagated between a man and a woman who have been sealed together in eternal marriage and have then been resurrected with celestial bodies.
To be continued…
Valiant K. Jones is the author of The Heart of Our Covenants: Temple Principles that Draw Us unto Christ. For more information, see www.valiantjones.com or www.cedarfort.com.
Notes:
[i] Jeffrey R. Holland, “The Second Half of the Second Century of Brigham Young University,” ibid.
[ii] See Wikipedia, “Krister Stendahl,” last modified Sept. 12, 2024, 18:05 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krister_Stendahl.
[iii] General Handbook: Serving in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2.1.2, Gospel Library.
[iv] Brent A. Barlow, “Procreation,” Encyclopedia of Mormonism (Macmillan, 1992), 1157, https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Procreation.
[v] See Wikipedia, “Zina D. H. Young,” last modified Nov. 21, 2024, 12:20 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zina_D._H._Young.
[vi] Susa Young Gates, History of the Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of L.D.S., from Nov. 1869 to June 1910, 16, https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/NCMP1820-1846/id/26618.
[vii] Dallin H. Oaks, “Apostasy and Restoration,” Ensign, May 1995, 87.
[viii] Gospel Topics Essays, “Mother in Heaven,” Gospel Library.
[ix] Elaine Anderson Cannon, “Mother in Heaven,” Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 961, https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Mother_in_Heaven; emphasis added.
[x] Teachings of Presidents of the Church: John Taylor (2011), 3.
[xi] The First Presidency of the Church, “The Origin of Man,” Improvement Era 13, no. 1 (Nov. 1909), 78; reprinted in Ensign, Feb. 2002, 26–30.
[xii] Bonnie H. Cordon, “Beloved Daughters,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2019, 67.
[xiii] Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “O How Great the Plan of Our God!” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2016, 21.
[xiv] Julie B. Beck, “You Have a Noble Birthright,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2006, 106.
[xv] Google Dictionary, s.v. “literal,” accessed December 10, 2024, https://www.google.com/search?q=literal.
[xvi] Franklin D. Richards, A Compendium of the Doctrines of the Gospel (Harvard College, 1894), 120.
[xvii] Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, 11:122; emphasis added.
[xviii] Scot and Maurine Proctor, “Come Follow Me Podcast #46: ‘When We Obtain Any Blessing it is from God’, D&C 129–132,” Meridian Magazine Podcast (podcast), Nov. 7, 2021, https://latterdaysaintmag.com/come-follow-me-podcast-46-when-we-obtain-any-blessing-it-is-from-god-doctrine-and-covenants-129-132/.
[xix] Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, 2:90.
[xx] Note that President Smith stated that some functions will not appear, not that some organs will not appear.
[xxi] Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie (1955), 2:396–7; formatting modified.
[xxii] James E. Faust, “Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord?,” Ensign, Aug. 2001, 4.
[xxiii] Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, comp. Joseph Fielding Smith Jr. (1966), 4:197.
[xxiv] Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith (1976), 300– 301; emphasis added.
[xxv] Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 2:429; emphasis added.
[xxvi] Melvin J. Ballard, Three Degrees of Glory (Zion’s Printing and Publishing Co., 1922), 10;emphasis added.
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